Reviewer: Jesse Baker
Story Title: Break-Out: Part Two
Written by: Brian Bendis
Penciled by: David Finch
Inked by: Danny Miki & Mark Morales
Colored by: Frank D’Amata
Lettered by: Richard Starkings & Albert Deschesne
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Publisher: Marvel Comics
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TwistRich: Jesse
TwistRich: You’re getting your money back
TwistRich: Bendis assured me
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TwistRich, BTW is Rich Johnston’s AIM handle. For those not in the know, Johnston runs the rumor column “Lying In the Gutter” over at Comic Book Resources.
That being said, I eagerly request that everyone out there who are just as disgusted as I am about Bendis and his destruction of the Avengers to mail him back your Bendis written issues and demand he honor his offer to refund disgruntled readers their money back. And since Bendis has deleted his original thread proclaiming the details regarding this “Money Back” plan from his message board, I give yoo the following information for those want to follow me and make Bendis pay up for his rape of the Avengers franchise:
Brian Bendis
6336 SE Milwaukee Ave. PMB #32
Portland OR 97202
Faux Avengers #2
Lots of stuff happening as Bendis continues to prove himself to be a Class-A hack. Most notably the villains in the issue: Bendis continues to flaunt the “Dead Stay Dead Unless It’s One Of My Pet Writers” rule of fat-head in chief Joe Queseda and his disdain for continuity by sticking obscure Captain America villain Cut Throat (a character created by Mark Gruenwald in Captain America #396 and promptly killed off, in gruesomely ironic throat-slitting fashion ten issues later) in the mob scene of this issue. In his defense he gets the guy’s real name right in the ID text segment of the issue but this is just inexcusible in terms of Bendis not doing his research, let alone Tom Brevoort not doing his job and EDITING Bendis If Bendis can remember the uber-obscure villain “The Crusader”, couldn’t he have picked another LIVING obscure character for this issue? Or better yet, Tom Brevoort forcing Bendis to use another more well-known villain instead?
Oh and let’s not forget Carnage, who is described as a “homicidal vampire”. Last time I checked, the only time Carnage has ever been portrayed as a “vampire” was in the 1994 Spider-Man cartoon and even then that was done simply so the writers could get away with Carnage impaling people on the cartoon. Carnage, as seen in the comic, is a psychopathic murderer who uses his symbiote costume to mutilate and dismember his victims. Carnage is not a vampire.
Also Spidey gets unmasked. I’m kind of apathetic towards this since God knows Marvel has spent the last seven years downplaying the fact that Peter Parker is the dude who ALWAYS got the pictures of Spider-Man and even put out a book of his photographs. So it’s not like anyone will get the jones to remember this and put this into practice towards logically putting two and two together since the current company line is that Peter never was a photographer, just a school teacher and a amateur scientist. As it stands, this looks like an excuse to ship Mary Jane and Aunt May off to the soon to be built Titans Tower, I mean Avengers Tower. And as much as the notion of seeing the two interact with the Avengers, doing it this way is the most stupid way possible to do it.
And now for the big thing; Carnage’s death at the hands of Sentry. I’ll be looking at it through a new feature for my reviews, I like to call….
THE ARMCHAIR COMIC WRITER CORNER
First off I would have had Carnage murder Luke Cage. Yes MURDER Luke Cage. Luke Cage has always been a worthless character at best and having his guts ripped out of his chest and blood used to paint the walls of prison would have established that Carnage is indeed a massive threat that would warrant murdering him. And sending Cage to Super-Hero Valhalla would be a perfect gesture of good-will towards everyone Brian Bendis has pissed off with regards to Vision and Hawkeye’s deaths, by having him kill off his Mary Sue as a sacrifical lamb of appeasement.
Under this scenerio, it would make perfect sense to have Sentry kill Carnage as well as give a rational reason for letting him join the Avengers after breaking their number one taboo. The Avengers have a strict policy of not allowing murderers on their team as well as only tolerating members who kill to remain on the team if the killing takes place under extreme circumstances (i.e. Warbird killing The Master when he tried to kill her with a sword and Hawkeye killing Egghead in order to keep him from firing a laser gun). Killing to keep Carnage from continuing a murder spree, especially after he murdered a hero would go far to justify Sentry’s actions and his joining of the Avengers. But then again, Bendis seems not to give a damn about this sort of thing what with the way that he’s bringing Wolverine (who’s now a mass murderer thanks to Mark Millar’s blood-bath of a storyline “Enemy of State”).
And now there is the ending, which is so cliched that I’m just sick of it. I don’t care about the Purple Man. I think he’s a lame villain and I don’t approve of how Bendis dug him out of the graveyard to create artificial sympathy for Jessica “Alias” Jones by having him hold her prisoner and making her beg for Purple Man’s purple co** 24-7. That being said, him possessing Cage is just stupid because you know nothing will come of it and worse, we’ll be forced to endure Cage breaking out of Purple Man’s control right before he does anything evil by having everyone drag up how Purple Man is his pregnant girlfriend’s arch-nemesis. That being said, with Purple Man already being used in New Thunderbolts, Tom Brevoort should have forbidden Bendis from using Purple Man and made him use someone else (like Mesmero or the Corruptor or Controller).
Letter Page Round-Up
In a suprising twist, Marvel includes a letter page in this issue that echoes the sentiments of many Avengers fans in regards to the fact that people hate the new direction. Sadly assistant editor Andy Schmidt does nothing but mock the negative readers, as if to ape Bendis’s own negative letter page response from the pages of “Powers”. But at least Andy is man enough to publish letters telling Marvel that they aren’t buying the bullshit they are selling.
